A little known way to becoming wealthy…

Money is never made in a vacuum

People.

A big factor in financial success is other people:

1. People you collaborate with
2. People who connect you
3. People you hire
4. People who sell to you
5. People who buy from you

I will go into these in greater detail below:

1. People you collaborate with

I am sure you are all familiar with this saying:

“You are the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with”

If you surround yourself with people who know things you don’t and challenge you to be a better version of yourself, you will naturally level up.

Not only this but you be able to build a strong tribe, a network of partners, associates and potential suppliers or buyers.

Many successful people like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and Bill Gates didn’t work by themselves, they always had teams, partners and connections that helped them to reach the level of success they achieved.

This doesn’t even have to be friends, if you know how to reach out to a distributor, sales manager or influencer and convince them to work with you then you will go very far.

However if you decide to go this route, your product or idea needs to stand out and have some proof-of-concept, prototype or MVP (most viable product). An MVP is the most basic version of your product, idea or service, a working product to get your foot in the door.

Learn how to reach out to people, how to inspire people, how to convince people, how to work with people and how to improve YOUR skills and network, so you have something to give back.

You have to give value to receive value, so build yourself up and put yourself out there.

2. People who connect you

I remember hearing this saying when I was younger:

“You are only as successful as the company you keep, your network is your net-worth”.

No person is an island, to build wealth you need to SELL, and to sell you need CONSUMERS, now the funny thing about consumers is they DON’T LIKE being sold to.

This is why it’s important to know people close to the customer who can introduce you or make a referral on your behalf.

This could be:

• a friend of the customer
• a sister company
• a supplier
• a distributor
• the CEO’s nephew
• or the manager’s daughter who can’t stop begging mommy and daddy for that cute new toy that your company is struggling to mass produce.

You need people who can connect you not only with customers but with OPPORTUNITIES.

You might be trying to break into a highly competitive, low profit industry, just for your friend to tell you about a new, high-margin industry with virtually no competitors.

If wealth was a passenger, people would be the vehicles.

3. People you hire

There’s a saying that goes:

“A Jack of all trades is a master of none”.

If you recruit people who are better than you at a particular task and you compensate them well, you get a massive return on your investment.

Don’t know how to program that app you want to build? Hire someone

Not a natural sales person? Recruit one?

Garage ain’t big enough and you have no time to pack and deliver? Outsource it?

Got too many small tasks taking up your time? Get a personal assistant.

There’s a lot of people out there who are better and more efficient at certain tasks than you ever will be and you need to track them down.

This doesn’t always have to be salaried employees, for example if you create an affiliate program for your business, you want to recruit affiliates with large followings and considerable influence.

The people you hire are like an army for your business, product, idea or service. You want to hire the best.

4. People who sell to you

Here is another saying I came across when I started my first business:

“You don’t make your money when you sell, you make your money when you buy”.

There are two thing you should always look for when buying anything, whether its a product you intend to sell or a product for personal use:

1. FAIR Price
2. GOOD quality

By FAIR price, I don’t mean a low price, in fact the cheaper options are usually the worst, they’re cheap for a reason.

The price you pay needs to reflect the value you intend to get from the item and not anymore:

• If there are middle men driving up the price, cut them out.
• If there are any unnecessary extras, don’t purchase those.
• Try and buy from the direct source when possible
• Avoid paying using credit or monthly instalments, upfront payments work out to be cheaper in the long run.
• Don’t use debt to purchase anything, if you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it. There are exceptions of course but this should be a general principal.

Next the quality has to be GOOD, for example I used to buy loads of cheap $4 t-shirts that needed to be replaced every other month, so I started buying $40 designer t-shirts that have lasted me over 4 years now. I only need to buy 1–2 extra t-shirts every year now instead of 10–30.

Same thing goes for products you want to sell, if you can pay more for better quality, choose the better quality option, your customers and your business bank account will thank you later.

5. People who buy from you

This is a saying I saw once from Sam Walton, Chief Sales Officer of Hub International:

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

“Build it and they will come” is an outdated tactic, knowing people’s biggest pains is the new way to build wealth.

Knowing what problem people want solved, solving that problem and keeping them happy is a sure fire way to become wealthy. People will quickly pay for anything that makes life easier or makes them happier.

• Why do you think people do drugs? It helps them to escape.
• Why do people smoke? It reduces stress
• Why do people drink? It dulls the senses and improves the mood during the moment.

Now the top 3 examples are very bad ones, intoxicating people is not a good way to become wealthy. Instead find a way to provide a solution for peoples problems and they will pay you for it.

Want to help people escape? Create an app that plays songs based on a person’s mood, it has been proven that music produces pleasure in ways similar to drugs and sex.

People have spent thousands of years trying to make life easier for themselves, if you can do it, you will be a very wealthy person.

This is the reason why social networks, service businesses and technology companies make the most revenue and boast billion dollar valuations in only a few years.

So there you have it, people:

How you can work with them

How they can connect you

How they can work for you

What you need from them

What they need from you.

That is one little known and over-looked way to become wealthy.

Wealth flows through multiple networks, if you have no network, where will the wealth come from?

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +430,678 people.

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